University of Kentucky UKnowledge University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2008 BORDER CROSSINGS: US CONTRIBUTIONS TO SASKATCHEWAN EDUCATION, 1905-1937 Kerry Alcorn University of Kentucky, [email protected] Right click to open a feedback form in a new tab to let us know how this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Alcorn, Kerry, "BORDER CROSSINGS: US CONTRIBUTIONS TO SASKATCHEWAN EDUCATION, 1905-1937" (2008). University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations. 653. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/gradschool_diss/653 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at UKnowledge. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of UKnowledge. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION Kerry Alcorn The Graduate School University of Kentucky 2008 BORDER CROSSINGS: US CONTRIBUTIONS TO SASKATCHEWAN EDUCATION, 1905-1937 ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Education at the University of Kentucky By Kerry Alcorn Lexington, Kentucky Director: Dr. Richard Angelo, Associate Professor of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation Lexington, Kentucky 2008 Copyright © Kerry Alcorn 2008 ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION BORDER CROSSINGS: US CONRIBUTIONS TO SASKATCHEWAN EDUCATION, 1905-1937 Traditional histories of Canadian education pursue an east/west perspective, with progress accompanying settlement westward from Ontario. This history of Saskatchewan education posits, instead, a north-south perspective, embracing the US cultural routes for the province’s educational development from 1905 until 1937. I emphasize the transplantation of US Midwestern and Plains culture to the province of Saskatchewan through cultural transfer of agrarian movements, political forms of revolt, and through adopting shared meanings of democracy and the relationship of the West relative to the East. Physiographic similarities between Saskatchewan and the American Plains fostered similar moralistic political cultures and largely identical solutions to identical problems. This larger cultural transfer facilitated developments in Saskatchewan K- 12 education that paralleled movements in the US milieu through appropriating into the province’s system of schooling American teachers into classrooms, American school textbooks, teacher training textbooks written in the US, and through the pursuit of American graduate training by Saskatchewan Normal School instructors. This resulted in the articulation in the US and Saskatchewan of a “rural school problem,” consolidation as its only solution, and the transplantation of a language of school reform identified by Herbert Kliebard as “social efficiency.” The invitation issued by the government of Saskatchewan in 1917 to an American expert on rural schooling, Harold Foght, to survey the province’s system of schooling and make recommendations for its reform, marked a high point in American influence in the province of Saskatchewan’s system of schooling. In higher education the province’s sole university, the University of Saskatchewan, mirrored even more closely American Midwestern and Plains models. Essentially, the U of S was a transplanted version of the University of Wisconsin. Under the guidance of the University’s first President, Walter C. Murray, the “Wisconsin idea” permeated the practice and meaning of his University. His persistent pursuit of Carnegie Foundation financial support throughout his tenure meant Murray had to pattern his university after its American antecedents. Though Murray largely failed to gain substantial financial support for the U of S, the result was a university identical to many American land grant and public universities. Keywords: History of Education in Canada, History of Education in Saskatchewan, the rural school problem, history of higher education in Saskatchewan, cultural transfer and reception BORDER CROSSINGS: US CONTRIBUTIONS TO SASKATCHEWAN EDUCATION, 1905-1937 By Kerry Alcorn Dr. Richard Angelo Director of Dissertation Dr. Jane Jensen Director of Graduate Studies July 31, 2008 (Date) RULES FOR THE USE OF DISSERTATIONS Unpublished dissertations submitted for the Doctor’s degree and deposited in the University of Kentucky Library are as a rule open for inspection, but are to be used only with due regard to the rights of the authors. Bibliographical references may be noted, but quotations or summaries of parts may be published only with the permission of the author, and with the usual scholarly acknowledgments. Extensive copying or publication of the dissertation in whole or in part also requires the consent of the Dean of the Graduate School of the University of Kentucky. A library that borrows this dissertation for use by its patrons is expected to secure the signature of each user. Name Date DISSERTATION Kerry Alcorn The Graduate School University of Kentucky 2008 BORDER CROSSINGS: US CONTRIBUTIONS TO SASKATCHEWAN EDUCATION, 1905-1937 DISSERTATION A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Education at the University of Kentucky By Kerry Alcorn Lexington, Kentucky Director: Dr. Richard Angelo, Associate Professor of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation Lexington, Kentucky 2008 Copyright © Kerry Alcorn 2008 Acknowledgements The greatest compliment one can pay to a committee, in my mind, is to confirm that there is a part of each of them in the work I have completed. In Dr. Stephen Clements I found someone who I wished I could be when I grew up—an industrious political scientist who maintains a deep interest in K-12 educational policy. His comments and patient support throughout much of my course work and all my writing has made me a better writer and researcher, and reassured me that K-12 schooling is the place to be. Dr. Beth Goldstein was the first member of the EPE faculty with whom I met, and from that time forward she has served me with uncommon grace and intellect. It was she who suggested I investigate the University of Wisconsin as a possible model for the U of S. As Chapter Four will attest, she was absolutely correct. Dr. Ellen Furlough of the History Department encouraged me to move beyond the realm of History to consider culture, its transfer, and reception, as a starting point for understanding how ideas and policies move from one part of the world to another. Her tenacity for asking a difficult question and demanding a rigorous answer challenged me, but helped confirm, in my own mind, that I could do the work of a historian. Dr. Richard Angelo was the first EPE faculty member with whom I worked in the summer of 1999. His wisdom and foresight are obvious in many ways, not least of which was his selection of books for my introduction to the History of American Education. Two of those works, Kliebard’s, The Struggle for the American Curriculum, and Cremin’s, The Transformation of the School, form the backbone to my understanding of American schooling in the progressive age. His guidance through the writing process was patient and meticulous, and always with my interests and academic success at the forefront. I could not have had a better or more supportive supervisor. Finally, I wish to thank my external reader, Dr. George Crothers of the Department of Anthropology, for his comments and iii flexibility in meeting the needs of student whose time frame was outside traditional parameters. To each of you, thank you! As for my family, it’s not an overstatement to say I have devoted my adult life trying to conduct myself, professionally and personally, in a manner to which they would be proud. My wife, Dr. Jane Alcorn, has been my model for intellectual rigor mixed with familial piety, and given that she and I share so much of our lives, this dissertation is as much her success as it is mine. Were it not for her ability to aid a technological Neanderthal in how to format a document, this history might still be incomplete, and there would be a computer graveyard outside our library window. As for my son, Danny, at nineteen he appears poised to pursue his father’s path, hopefully minus the missteps, as a student athlete—someone who will play collegiate volleyball and pursue political studies in the classroom. If anything, I trust that this dissertation shows that one can be both a student and an athlete, and that the first word in that equation is student. More so, I hope he understands that just as in sports, hard work, commitment, and persistence in the classroom can take you a long way. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................... iii List of Tables..................................................................................................................viii List of Figures .................................................................................................................. ix List of Files ........................................................................................................................ x Chapter One: Introduction and Review of the Literature...........................................1 I Introduction ......................................................................................................1 II Review of the Literature..................................................................................3